A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern China and left at least 65 dead

The quake of magnitude 6.6 struck Sichuan province in China at a depth of 6 miles. Local media reports that the impact led to breakage of telecommunication lines and triggered mountain landslides. These resulted to "serious damage." The quake left 65 people dead. Incidentally, last week the authorities had asked millions of people in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to stay at home because of COVID rules. The epicentre of the quake was at Luding. This is a town located about 140 miles (226 Km) in a remote mountain region southwest of Chengdu. The China Earthquake Networks Centre has reported this. The city of Ya'an reports death of 17 people and neighboring prefecture of Ganzi reports 29 deaths. In addition, there were reports of another 16 people missing and 50 injured. The tremors shook buildings in Chengdu and the neighboring mega-city of Chongqing. There was blockage of roads and disruption of communication lines to hundreds of thousands of residents. China quake: Deadly tremor rocks Sichuan city in lockdown. The shocks led to the shut down of a number of power stations in the areas of Garze and Ya'an,

The authorities moved hundreds of rescue personnel to the epicenter and workers tried to remove the roadblocks caused by landslides. Residents of Chengdu saw people trying to vacate their high-rise apartments after receiving alerts of earthquake on their phones. Chengdu became the latest city to be locked down by Chinese authorities, in an attempt to stem the rise in COVID cases. This quake comes several months after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake tore through Sichuan in June. Sichuan lies along the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and is an earthquake-prone area. The earthquake brings into memory an 8.0-magnitude quake, which hit Wenchuan County in northwest Sichuan in 2008. It had left 70,000 dead and led to large-scale destruction.

China thrilled with increase in numbers of the wild giant panda

#giantpanda #sichuan #WWFChina As per the latest survey of wild giant pandas undertaken by China’s State Forestry Administration, it has been revealed that the animals are making a comeback in the country as reported in foxnews.com dated 28 February 2015.
The last census had been taken in 2003 and, now, the figure is much more – it has grown from only 268 in 2003 to 1864 now. Most of the Chinese panda population lives in the province of Sichuan – nearly 75% - while the balance live in Shaanxi and Gansu, which are near Sichuan.
In the opinion of Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of wildlife conservation for World Wildlife Fund, this rise in the population of wild giant pandas can be termed to be a victory for conservation. Credit for this should go to the Chinese government and its programs.
The survey has revealed that 1,246 wild giant pandas live within nature reserves and there are 67 of them in China – this is an increase of 27 since the last survey. Obviously, it can be concluded that the effectiveness of nature reserves in boosting wild giant panda numbers cannot be ignored.
Of course, there are threats - economic development in the regions are the main threat to future growth of the panda’s population because, as many as 319 hydropower stations and 832 miles of roads have been built in its natural habitat. This has been pointed out by Xiaohai Liu, executive program director for WWF-China.
Incidentally, the current census started in 2011 and took three years to complete.